Smartesting, Atos Origin automate SAP SW tests

BANGALORE, INDIA: Atos Origin, a provider in IT services , and Smartesting, a software developer specialized in functional test industrialization, announced that they have teamed to develop a functional test solution for SAP environments.

Representing a €2-million investment, co-financed by Oséo, the French government’s innovation support and financing agency, the solution has taken a radically different approach by building test modeling into projects right from the launch phase, said a press release.

This means that customers would no longer need to manually formalize functional test cases as the project advances, since the tests are modeled in parallel with the specifications phase and automatically generated for use during all subsequent phases. This  initiative would enable the secure deployment of SAP projects while reducing design phase cycle times and costs by up to 40 per cent.

“This program reflects the combination of Smartesting’s innovative technology, which facilitates the design and generation of functional tests for software acceptance projects, and Atos Origin’s extensive expertise in ERP integration for large corporate customers,” said Laurent Py, CEO of Smartesting.

He added, “With it, we’re introducing an exciting new approach to testing in SAP environments and addressing one of the key issues in IT governance.”

Jean-Marc Djian, director of Solutions and Partnerships at Atos Origin France, said “The solutions developed jointly with Smartesting for the automated generation of SAP test cases are perfectly aligned with the expectations of our customers in terms of cost savings and budget management.”

He further added that The solutions also enable highly secure operational deployment, with automatic traceability between requirements, test cases and software quality that optimizes upgrade maintenance and technical migration projects.

SAP is currently deployed by half of France’s leading corporations, however, 93% of them also report that their SAP projects miss operational deployment deadlines (source: 2008 Panorama Consulting Group survey), even as their SAP applications continue to evolve in response to new country-specific regulations, changing business requirements and the development of new versions.

To address these issues, Smartesting and Atos Origin have pooled their expertise to offer an automatic software generation solution that automates SAP software tests upstream in the process.

The solution therefore complements the SAP TAO downstream automated testing solution and is compatible with standard test management tools.

The new solution would be commercially available in 2010. Its breakthrough approach will drive positive changes in IT project management by enabling business, development and systems operations teams to share the same vision right from the early stages of development, bridging the imperatives of corporate IT departments and project managers alike, the release added.